The exit of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been met with cheers on the streets of Damascus but in capitals near and far, including New Delhi, many parts of the wider uprising are crossing many fingers.
Assad, who has ruled the country since 2000, was forced to flee the country on Sunday (Dec 8) as Islamist rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which he inherited from his father Hafez al-Assad in 1971. He held a rally in the capital of Syria.
Discontent with Assad
The outrage against Assad’s regime is an interesting case in the Arab world. Coming to power at age 35, Assad went from reluctant leader to one CNN called “most popular” in December 2009, with nearly 68% of Arabs voting for him. Trained to be an ophthalmologist, Asad’s style was informal as he interacted with people in restaurants and public places.
When this reporter visited Syria in October 2011, there was no missing a strong personality cult around him: billboards, pictures, posters dotting the landscape in cities.
Along the way, later, he went from eye doctor to president. The process of economic liberalization initiated by Assad does not factor in social justice. With the opening of modern Syria, the lower levels of society have suffered.
Grievances against the regime ranged from local economic and livelihood issues to democratic reforms. And many felt that religious extremists sensed an opportunity in this highly modern and secular society.
The Arab Spring that spread across West Asia and North Africa in 2011 – from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya – also echoed street protests in Syria. But Assad overruled it by force, issuing a harsh crackdown on those who opposed the regime. This triggered a civil war, with the US supporting the rebels while Russia, Iran and Hezbollah supported Assad.
Indeed, the local Syrian war was seen as a stage for a global conflict.
Even after Islamic State took control of parts of Syria, Assad’s regime was accused of using chemical weapons against rebels and its own people.
Shift in favor of HTS
In the 14 years since, Assad’s crackdown has extinguished the flames and the conflict has stabilized, the rebels bide their time.
In April this year, HTS chief Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani (also spelled as “Al-Jolani”) – The group that defeated Assad’s forces told their lieutenants, “God willing, we will soon celebrate Eid al-Fitr in Aleppo and Damascus.” There are still four months left for Eid-ul-Fitr.
In the past six months, Syria’s three main allies – Russia, Iran and Hezbollah – have either been distracted or weakened, sources in New Delhi point out, providing new openings for the rebels.
As Russia wages war in Ukraine, Iran is embroiled in a conflict with Israel, and Assad’s forces have been unable to defend some key cities against rebel groups on their own in the past three months, having suffered a debilitating blow to Hezbollah. Who had a connection with Al Qaeda. Turkey is also believed to support HTS and rebel groups.
HTS has a checkered history that will shape its present and future course. In one piece, Aaron Y., a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an official in Syria. Zelin explains why they are called “political jihadists,” more practical and practical than ideology-driven “Salafist jihadists.”
HTS began as a branch of the Islamic State’s predecessor group, the Islamic State of Iraq, when it was founded in January 2012 as Jabhat al-Nusrah. However, Zelin says, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi brought the organization from Iraq to Syria in April 2013, Jawlani “rejected Baghdadi and pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda’s leader.”
Three years later, another twist came: Jawlani rejected al-Qaeda and global jihad and moved to HTS, focused on fighting locally. Zelin writes: “At the time, there were questions about how real all of this was given the group’s history. However, in the meantime, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has not only destroyed the Islamic State’s presence in the liberated areas, it has also foiled al-Qaeda’s efforts to establish a new branch in Syria in June 2020 called Huras al-Din. At the same time, the group still espouses an Islamist worldview, so I would describe its members as more political jihadists than Salafi jihadists. Their greater pragmatism over politics and theology does not drive decision-making like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.”
View from the rest of the world, New Delhi
Zelin’s interpretation is echoed by many Western analysts who see HTS as more focused on Syrian nationalism rather than jihadist ambitions, but New Delhi remains very cautious about HTS’ moves in the coming days and weeks.
Experts on the South Bloc recall how the use of the Arab Spring in Libya quickly descended into chaos after the fall of Gaddafi. And how in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood took control. So the Indian establishment is wary of how to play in a post-Assad Syria.
Hadi al-Bahra, head of Syria’s main opposition group abroad (known as the Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces), said in a statement on Sunday that Damascus was now “without Bashar al-Assad.”
In a statement broadcast early Sunday on Syrian state television, a group of opposition fighters said they had “liberated” Damascus and defeated “dictator al-Assad” and that all prisoners held in regime prisons had been released.
Al-Jawlani of HTS has so far tried to allay the fears of minorities. On November 29, he told soldiers, after capturing Aleppo, “the first priority is to protect the property and lives of civilians and establish security and calm the fears of people of all sects”.
“Syria deserves an institutionalized system of governance, where a single ruler does not make arbitrary decisions,” he told CNN last week. He said, ‘Judge not by words, but by actions.
New Delhi and others around the world are watching the action – As they are looking at the Taliban in Afghanistan.